Introducing Unified Computing to the Data Center

“œI’ve discovered that the less I say, the more rumors I start” -Bobby ClarkeLately, there has been a lot of speculation by the technorati that”something is going on over at Cisco!” I am sure you have all read the blogs and reports in traditional media asserting that Cisco is going to enter new markets, compete for new business, and build new products. The answer? Yes, Yes and Yes, of course!Yes, Cisco is entering new markets. We view periods of economic uncertainty as the perfect time to challenge the status quo and evolve our business to deliver customer and shareholder value. Cisco’s success has always been driven by investments in market adjacencies during times that may cause other companies to blink.Yes, Cisco is innovating around an architectural approach we call “Unified Computing”. Unified Computing is the advancement toward the next generation data center that links all resources together in a common architecture to reduce the barrier to entry for data center virtualization. In other words, the compute and storage platform is architecturally”unified” with the network and the virtualization platform. What are the benefits in doing this? Virtualization architectures today are very much”assembly required” islands where the burden of systems integration is on the customer. This increases costs and deployment times while decreasing efficiency. Unified Computing eliminates this manual integration in favor of an integrated architecture and breaks down the silos between compute, virtualization, and connect. IT architectures are changing -becoming increasingly distributed, utilizing more open standards and striving for automation. IT has traditionally been very good at automating everything but IT! Unified Computing and automation at an architectural level can lower operating costs while extending capital assets. Industry standards, partnerships and an expanded ecosystem are key to this architectural transformation. We understand that. Cisco is supporting the development of systems architectures based on industry standards. We believe that the intersection of innovation with standards, especially in markets where it has been lacking, will create lasting value.Yes, there are markets where Cisco will compete with a few of our current partners. Cooperation among competitors in the tech industry is nothing new. Our responsibility as leaders of the technology industry is to constantly pioneer new ways to enhance our customers’ IT needs. This new environment will require even greater cooperation among major industry players. Our customers expect that and we are committed to them.Yes, of course the network is at the center of this market transition and Unified Computing. As the world becomes increasing interconnected, the network delivers more value. The value of a connected component is greater than that of an isolated one -a storage array must connect to servers to be valuable and a server must connect to clients and other servers to be valuable. Innovation, when it solves relevant real-world challenges creates sustainable value. Well, I have said enough. Now let me ask you this -Do you feel that there is a role for the integration of networks, servers, and storage more tightly, based on open standards, with virtualization as the common abstraction? What areas will see the biggest benefit from a resurgence of innovation within IT architectures?UPDATE: 2 February 2009 – Video of our CTO Padmasree Warrior answering questions about “Unified Computing.”

55 Comments.

Architectural innovation is the need of the hour. But what is more important is how Cisco unified architecture exposes itself to third part software and services. Essentially taking care of such integration was one of the services a typically systems integrator would provide. But with unified architectures and support for data center virtualization, I can estimate a decrease in the over all systems integration business. But on Cisco (for that matter any one else in the space) needs to provide web services and costing models on api requests instead of flat licensing fees. This will reduce the entry barrier for creating third party applications around this unified architecture. Second this will provide Cisco to enter markets where it currently has lesser penetration ie SME markets in developing countries.

Do you feel that there is a role for the integration of networks, servers, and storage more tightly, based on open standards, with virtualization as the common abstraction?""YES, but isn't a virtualization strategy what Sun Microsystems (NYSE: JAVA)is doing? Sun's founding slogan is ""The Network is the computer."" If virtualization is the strategy, why doesn't Cisco acquire Sun?Sun's share price is low making it a cheap, but strategic acquisition for Cisco.Jim CallahanOrlando, FL"

With Unified infrastructure and such speed increases in network, I see commodity boxes breaking down and infrastructure components moving to a much more granular level. I mean wouldn't it be cool to have one more processor when you need to increase the computing capacity - that too, of the entire network, rather than an entire box? Or just add a couple of memory modules to the network mesh, increasing the capacity of the whole network, rather than a machine - a network out of which we can abstract out virtual machines by maintaining resource shares which can dynamically resize depending on the computing need. Seems rather radical change in computing, but that would be the ultimate nirvana of computing, in my view.

Let me comment on that thought. I think it will be very hard to do, mainly because there is no one single virtualization method that can cut across everything in the data center. Virtualized storage is different from running a virtual PC instance or a virtualized application inside an ordinary OS. I think it will be very difficult for Cisco -- or anyone else for that matter -- to provide a unified collection of APIs, tools, and software that can bring all these methods together under one roof. I also think Cisco has a very uphill battle here because their traditional customers, partners, and suppliers are not the same audience as the people who are going to be involved in this new virtual universe.

At a first glance this logic of unified architecture seems attractive and maybe the
irvana"" for most of the lasrge enterprises.The reality however is much more complex, the virtues of Virtualisation are yet to be expanded in real production environments.In my view what is needed is a robus Roadmap that delivers tangible benefits on the way to achieving Unified Architectures.If Cisco can articulate this journey it will be just brilliant."

Agrees that virtualization seems to mean java. But isnt the question a mater of unity and not universalism?Open standards are a good guide. Free standards (ie unpatented regime) are beter, but I guess that is a soapbox?They teach corporate culture that people do not like corporate culture even when in pursuit of that which seems to much in line with it. IT needs to unify just like everyone else.Seems more of a strategy of survival than a tactic of superior intelect to me at least.

Unified Computing is a great concept and if it does work well it would be path breaking and would change the way enterprises operate. As many other folks have commented above it is very complex to achieve this.The key to success is to ensure that the solution is highly modularized, easily scalable(Ability to add CPU, Mem, Disk etc independently), compatible to industry standards/interoperable & finally ease of administering this. This would be a good product for cloud computing.Looking back historically as technologies become more advanced they become more specialized and segmented. Past attempts at integrating the complete technology stack(Ex:appliances)and providing holistic solution have not been very successful. Unified Computing seems to be 180 deg to the market direction. It would be interesting to watch how it evolves. All the best to Cisco!!

There is a lot to do. Virtualization has to go step by step the long walk till the full HW agnostic computing scalation. A milestone will be finding carrier grade communication infrastructure sold only as software"", both SIP or SaaS able to be deployed in standard virtual platforms."

I believe that Unified Computing is the only path toward a functional cloud environment
irvana"", at all layers (except for physical). I am trying now Unified Communication, using this concept, and it is impossible where virtualization is not supported, for example (a must, in my opinion, for any ""unification"") - so we'll have to see that happening, first, way before the release of APIs ""higher up"""^0^1^^^0^0
12372^6726^Lance Perry^lperry@cisco.com^http://http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ciscoitatwork/index.html^171.70.236.114^2009-01-22 17:10:43^2009-01-22 17:10:43^Thank you for posting, while I won't attepmt to contribute technically(no comments), I wanted to thank folks for their perspective. Very valuable to me, see Doug I do read your stuff :-)Lance^0^1^^^0^0
12374^6785^Ged^ged_davies@appsig.com^^12.191.193.170^2009-01-22 23:15:12^2009-01-22 23:15:12^"The words about open industry standards all sound good, but the devil is in the details:Will it be easy for 3rd parties to develop devices to plug into this platform, or will the licensing model prevent or restrict this (like IBM's BladeCenter model)?Will the hardware architecture support some kind of interoperability with existing open standards, such as AdvancedTCA?Will I be able to use Open Source software and middleware to manage my system?Many companies are open"" when it suits them, but closed whenever ""open"" allows others to compete. Will Cisco follow this model? I look forward to clarification."

I'm glad to see Cisco's approach to data center unification. I've also been promoting a similar approach with a unified cloud interface specification which bridges local and remote (cloud) infrastructure using a common cloud aPI.

I believe putting too many eggs in one basket might not be a good move in the longer run....history is well known to many around the world and monopoly does not stay for long time and human nature is too smart to understand this....Cisco future is bright provided they stick to the new technologies / innovations in the area of their expertise....

Ms. Warrior,I still don't understand what Unified Computing is. Is there a white paper I can read?Is Unified Computing some kind of end-to-end solution so that you can tell the data center: ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œjust prepare an empty room and we will provide every thing, including a very thin manualÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â?Thanks,Shibin

Unified computing is the future. Squeezed IT budgets are forcing companies to move from the model of capital expenditures to operating expenditures. Virtual data centers will essentially allow the Pay as you go model and flatten the playing field for all - small, medium and large companies when it comes down to acquiring state of the art computing and storage resources in a very cost-effective manner.Virtual computing and cloud storage"" that is geographaically dispersed, secure, reliable, scalable, redundant and allows data to live beyond the life of the harddware in a cost effective manner is a must to make the concept of unified virtual computing and storage work. There are of course companies that are getting into this space (Microsoft, Google, IBM and now Cisco...). Cisco will need to create an ecosystem of partners to be succesful in this space. There are many companies (big and small) that are trying to solve this problem and some are closer than others. In the storage world there is Cleversafe, Nirvanix, Amazon. In the computing world you already have Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others entering this space. I am glad Cisco is entering this space as well."

I forgot to introduce myself. I am a software developer and a friendly, easy-going guy. In my spare time, I like to surf various technology web sites and make friends. For example, I had some discussion with EMC people towards the end of following link:http://chucksblog.typepad.com/chucks_blog/2008/08/it-is-inherentl.html#commentsand we became kind of friends. I visited SUN too, but I found themselves were in trouble and I was not used to bother people in their difficult time. Today, there are two things I want to have a friendly talk with Cisco technical experts. I am sure I will learn something new.First thing first. Cisco has a vision of next generation data center called Data Center 3.0 (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns708/networking_solutions_solution_segment_home.html). After adding your own server and storage solutions, it's called Unified Computing. I haven't fully understood your technology yet. With my limited knowledge of Unified Computing, I image your approach is treating all data center resources as fabric services based on the virtualization technology. The goal is to reduce data center operation cost via centralized management, automation, easy deployment, resource usage efficiency and so on.In above EMC link, I also proposed a version of next generation data center. The major differences between your version and my version are:1.Mine is driven by green technologies and yours is driven by virtualization2.With your approach, every server has to run a VM. In my version, virtualization is a sub-set of next generation. Sometimes, VM is not necessary. E.g. if an application has high CPU usage or it has to provide real-time response, I prefer Straightforward Computing.3.With your version, only someone can do next generation. With mine, everyone can contribute. Fair to say, your vision is ken and practical. Unfortunately, there could be only one ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œnext generationÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â. I have no choice but defending mine, even though I know it's very difficult to me.Could you list some reasons why yours is better than mine?Thanks,Shibin

Unified computing (Server nodes with intelligent fabric) or Unified networking (Intelligent Server nodes with dumb network fabric) will go head to head, good to see that Cisco is driving unified computing.FYI: Servers (And Blades) are sold with middleware software bundled. Cisco will require to do some amount of work in this area....

Mayank made the following observation in his post a few days ago:Architectural innovation is the need of the hour. But what is more important is how Cisco unified architecture exposes itself to third party software and services.""Good point Mayank, here's my response:Open standards, both from open forums as well as de facto standards, are a key part of the commitment Cisco is making in helping shepherd Unified Computing Architectures to market. The 'it takes a village' factor is real in IT architectures and while Cisco can simplify parts of the architecture by integrating and making turn-key some of the more onerous deployment tasks of today, the IT world requires multiple companies to come together to support the goals of our mutual customers.We firmly believe that the creation of 3rd Party Application and Developer ecosystems will be a critical success factor for this architecture as well as for Cisco's vision for the Data Center, Virtualization, and Cloud Computing. This is an area in which we have room to improve, and we are willing to make that change."

In his post, Suraj Jacob commented: With Unified infrastructure and such speed increases in network, I see commodity boxes breaking down and infrastructure components moving to a much more granular level...""Here's my view: In 2005 Cisco postulated that every time the network capacity got faster two things happened: 1) networks converged, and, 2) computer systems disaggregated. We have seen this with peripherals, with storage, even now with CPU-to-CPU transactions. Evolution of device or nodal registration can allow zero-touch installations of incremental capacity to the system as a whole, provided standards are adhered to for interconnect and device registration protocols. But what you describe Suraj is a much more dynamic and linear-to-superlinear scaling model for IT Architectures, which will be an enabler of lower capital and operating costs for our customers."

Jim Callahan posed the following question in his post:...Isn't a virtualization strategy what Sun Microsystems (NYSE:JAVA)is doing? Sun's founding slogan is 'The Network is the computer.' If virtualization is the strategy, why doesn't Cisco acquire Sun?""Jim, here are my thoughts on that: Java is a good programming language and it redefined cross-platform development and write-once/run-everywhere architectures. But it is just one component of a broader virtualization strategy that also allows existing software applications to be abstracted from the underlying infrastructure and enables workload mobility/portability from one part of the physical infrastructure to another. The decoupling of the logical software from the physical hardware allows virtualization to essentially be ""Software representations of Hardware Architectures"". This allows the network to interconnect multiple resources and then ensure that the workload is executed on the most effective device for that workload at that time with new capacity, moves, and changes all handled in real-time in software."

David Strom commented: I think it will be very hard to do, mainly because there is no one single virtualization method that can cut across everything in the data center. Virtualized storage is differentfrom running a virtual PC instance or a virtualized application insidean ordinary OS...I also think Cisco has a very uphill battle here because their traditional customers, partners, and suppliers are not the same audience as thepeople who are going to be involved in this new virtual universe.""David: No argument, if it wasn't hard then anyone could do it and it wouldn't be nearly as valuable to the business. In periods of economic disruption people are often more willing to look at new ways of doing things to replace old approaches that are perceived as wasteful -- provided they feel there can be a real improvement in efficiency or cost. Today's IT architectures are ripe for, in some cases, a revolution and in others a specialization. I agree, the server decision makers in some of the IT shops are an audience we have not traditionally engaged, but as Cisco has evolved from a routing company to a networking company to a communications company, we have evolved our scope and expertise, and each time the value proposition of a connected infrastructure has been sound."

Naveen Arora commented: At a first glance this logic of unified architecture seems attractive and maybe the ""nirvana"" for most of the large enterprises...In my view what is needed is a robust Roadmap that delivers tangible benefits on the way to achieving Unified Architectures.""Naveen -- our data center team was reviewing something along these lines very recently at our analyst conference. Stay tuned as it should be published very shortly."

Sounds like some sort of techno-utopia to me. Hopefully one day the datacenter I currently work for evolves to the point of virtualizing everything more. That was the fad a few years ago but now I see too many physical servers coming in the door again...

Ged posted the following: The words about open industry standards all sound good, but the devil is in the details...Many companies are ""open"" when it suits them, but closed whenever ""open"" allows others to compete. Will Cisco follow this model?"" Ged, some product details will, of course, have to wait. But you offer some good advice here. One point I will reiterate is that we see the need for open and consistent standards at many different layers in our developments -- from management to protocols to data link definitions to physical layer and power/cooling standards. There is always a balance between innovation and standards, but I feel that in some areas, like Unified Computing, we can can achieve both."

Reuven Cohen wrote: I'm glad to see Cisco's approach to data center unification. I've also been promoting a similar approach with a unified cloud interface specification which bridges local and remote (cloud) infrastructure using a common cloud API."" Thank you Reuven - we love reading your thoughtful blog over here as well. Keep up the good work, it is educational for the industry."

Farhan Ali commented: I believe putting too many eggs in one basket might not be a good move in the longer run....Cisco future is bright provided they stick to the newtechnologies / innovations in the area of their expertise."" Farhan: Cisco believes that the network can be a focal point for innovation, helping us enter new and adjacent markets if and when there is the right combination of value proposition and receptive audience."

Shreyas Shah wrote: Unified computing (server nodes with intelligent fabric) or Unified networking (intelligent server nodes with dumb network fabric) will gohead to head, good to see that Cisco is driving unified computing."" Shreyas: Cisco believes in balanced architectures with the right set of intelligence in the right place provided it solves customer challenges. Historically, federated network architectures scaled well, self-organized, auto-configured, and were self-healing. Thus the Internet became the most awesome communication vehicle ever -- the perfect distribution network for a utility with global reach, reliable delivery and stable operating characteristics. Imagine if the same were true of all IT assets."

Unified Computing concept seems to target a similar paradigm as the acronym MSBG (Multi-Service Business Gateway, see WikipediA), promoted by InStat, and with very advanced product now in the market.Virtualization means an equipment collapse/implosion in a few servers, providing tangible benefits (economics, space, low consumption). But Unified Computing maybe is the real and lastly waited IT convergence, an advance far away beyond Unified Comms and Virtualization: it contains all their benefits, even including an unique management system and opens the door to new scenarios (groupware, office automation, Call CenterÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¦) and new ways of commercialization: (unified) IT-as-a-Service. One small step for manufacturers, one giant leap for SMEs. If CISCO helps to promote these concepts, God save the Queen.

Enrique, thank you for the kind words. If we can get Unified Computing right, and we are most certainly working on exactly that, it will be the right way to harness virtualization as the abstraction between infrastructure and workloads comprised of Operating Systems and Applications, You highlight some of the potential use-cases, but imagine an entire call-center historically taking over 100 servers, 200 rack units, 8-10 racks, and up to 80 kilowatts in a data center -- being consolidated to something that takes less than eight servers, 1/3rd of a rack, 1/8th the power, and capable of supporting general purpose workloads as well. Then it definitely creates that giant-leap.

Mr. Cimadevila: I couldn't agree with you. I am a software developer reporting to a first-line manager, but I feel I can even design a better MSBG cloud. With Cisco's talent, I bet they have bigger ambition than just MSBG. They called their solution Data center 3.0, which means they want to re-define the data center This is not the technology-of-the-hour neither. Have you heard people call last hour's technology v2.0 and this hour's v3.0? If you call it v2.5, it makes more sense. Your second paragraph is also a little ambiguous. ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œBut Unified Computing maybe is the real and lastly waited IT convergenceÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â suggested that every data center had better install Unified Computing software. ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œ(unified) IT-as-a-ServiceÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â suggested that Cisco might build utility cloud and become kind of service provider. Which one did you really mean? Did you mean that utility computing is actual the future IT? Ms. Warrior: I just want to remind you that you responded to everybody except me. My questions was ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œCould you list some reasons why yours (data center solution) is better than mine?ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â In my follow-up comment, I have already given one of the reasons why mine is better than yours.

Santanu: You said ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œI also believe that healthy competition in technical innovation is good for customers and future of technology.ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â I can't agree more. ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œHealthy competitionÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â has a lot of meanings, like integrety, mutual respecting, honesty, frankness and so on. It's also up to the mutual trust of both sides of the competitors (like both agree not to break the rules).

I am getting out of here since I assume you are aware of green IT. I am getting busy too because I am also working on a hobby project using off the shelf (no special requirement) switch and other hardware.Moving towards the adjacent market is a good thing. It has double benefits: creating new market and promoting the tradition one. However, it also boosts the total digital data volume. If the digital devices remain the same energy efficiency, you are going to boost the energy consumption as well. To balance the emission level, you have to help lowing down per data unit watts. Why don't you regard this as a new business opportunity and make the benefits triple?When I am not that busy in my spare time, I will write down some thoughts and publish on my own blog. I wish I can do it soon since I keep on forgetting things week by week.See you later!Shibin

Hi,Unified Architecture is not knew. At Fabric7 systems we designed unified architecture with networking, storage and compute (servers) in a box. Unfortunately, we were ahead of the game by 5 years. (F7 was started in 2002).Also there are operational and maintenance related issues (Three separate admins, server, networking and storage) that only big companies can solve from CIO level.....Shreyas

Funny thing, the new vehicle must be Nuova Systemsgig with Mario Mazzola and the gang. Research theemployee's and things become clearer"" on thenew direction. They have developed a number ofASIC's for FOE and a tight integration of thechip sets onto the blade servers. With Edouard Bugnion on-board and a number of the ex-Fabric7folks, you get a strong sense of the direction.The gory details are all that is left. Might bean interesting horse race with the other ""blade""vendors, such as IBM and HP."

This is a fresh and nicely surprising development in the datacenter.I'm curious as to how this new offering from Cisco affects the forces driving cloud adoption against the forces driving shared virtual datacenters? Makes it easier / cost efficient to build a private cloud? What's the impact to IT economics?In my world at newScale, I have seen IT organizations working to define their technical service service offerings in a service catalog / portfolio in attempt to provide their business customers clear descriptions, prices, SLA's. The Cisco offering quite alters the what"" is that technical service, how to price it and what the relevant metrics ought to be.I expect this will be a challenge for IT organizations at first -- Cisco has an important role to play in guiding customer on best practices for adopting this products in the back office of IT as well as the front office of IT.Regards,Rodrigo Flores, CTO, newScalehttp://www.cloudfrontoffice.com (blog)"

I think it's a good aim to have but I think the technical aspects and challenges are possibly too great to overcome. There will be a lot of pain before we reach a point when unified computing is normal.Look at the issues Google had just a week or so ago. Gmail and Google apps went down leaving millions completely stuck.Are we sure that we can fully rely on a unified structure if our business critical software relies on it?

Well there are no industry standards per se. right now. Although I agree that virtualization will trickle down to and eventually dominate the SMB IT infrastructure market, there are too many players in the field today, namely Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware's ESXi and vCenter, plus several second-tier vendors, each one with a different set of standards, APIs, hardware and system requirements, etc. In my opinion, the decision for Cisco will be: whose standards to play by. I think it's too early to tell who will be dominating the market in a few years, but if I was a betting man, my money would be on VMware.Roland JNetwork AdminGuardian Networks

Padmasree, I totally agree with you recently, we offer a solution call center distance for a carrier to provide such a service to several businesses at 1 / 10 of a rack and 500 watts of consumption. Far from these impressive figures, for me the most remarkable fact is that the plant needs a couple of days for a technician, and now, O & M is only one, with both general knowledge of the voice, data and services, instead a bunch of gurus of the configuration and operation of these 100 servers (physical or virtual). Such labor cost could be reduced even more than physical and consumer issues. The key point: a unified management system, with all services and features pre-installed and logically interconnected, even with enhanced performance. And remember that these huge reduction figures to attract the market always dreamed of, the sleeping giant of SMEs.Also unified computing could be the ideal element for cloud computing micro-site/datacenter a highly distributed solution to low prices, valid from service providers to enterprise branch offices. Will we see the emergence of mini carriers and vendors, with IT as a commodity and supply IT-as-a-Service?I invite everyone to Unified Computing Group in LinkedIn for some strange ideas about IT xx

Thanks Cisco for staying on-top of IT developments.Unified Computing concept seems to target a similar paradigm as the acronym MSBG (Multi-Service Business Gateway, see WikipediA), promoted by InStat, and with very advanced product now in the market.

Overall, this is a cool architectural-centric product offering for next generation data center and cloud computing infrastructure, consisting of an end-to-end centrally managed solution. No doubt Cisco has up the ante in the data center. ItÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ll be interesting to see how other data center vendors respond ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å“ via their own product innovations, M&A activities and/or partnership re-alignments.

As written above, there is no one single virtualization method that can cut across everything in data centers.I think it will be very difficult for CiscoÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Âor anyone else for that matterÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Âto provide a unified collection of APIs, tools, and software that can bring all these methods together under one roof.

Nice article, I must say. However to answer your first question, yes it is the need of the hour that we integrate not only servers, networks etc but also services. I mean to say, 'Collaboration' is the correct need.I think Cisco must have thought of this. To answer your second question the benefits will vary across business domains.Currently I can see health sciences, E-commerce and mobile computing will be benefited immideately. Do have a look at my blog at http://iamit.webs.com/apps/blog/show/1410686-the-cloud-and-collaboration-space-of-cisco To conclude Cisco must not limit itself to traditional services offerings.

With Unified infrastructure and such speed increases in network, I see commodity boxes breaking down and infrastructure components moving to a much more granular level. I mean wouldnÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢t it be cool to have one more processor when you need to increase the computing capacity - that too, of the entire network, rather than an entire box? Or just add a couple of memory modules to the network mesh, increasing the capacity of the whole network, rather than a machine - a network out of which we can abstract out virtual machines by maintaining resource shares which can dynamically resize depending on the computing need. Seems rather radical change in computing, but that would be the ultimate nirvana of computing, in my view.John CBhttp://mmohut.com

May much done. Virtualization should go step by step along the way to complete HW agnostic Scalata computer. A stage is the bearer of the communication infrastructure are sold only as a software"", using the same standard SIP or so virtual SaaS platform."

Thanks again to all of you for sharing your insights and comments!Shibin and Elijah posed a good question regarding how best to define Unified Computing and the value it delivers. HereÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢s my view: First, itÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢s important to note that the Unified Computing System is part of our broader Cisco Data Center 3.0 strategy, which helps our customers evolve their data centers to a more consolidated, virtualized, and automated environment. This, in turn, lays the foundation for cloud computing. With UCS, we are delivering a unified architecture for the virtualized data center that, for the first time, seamlessly integrates compute, virtualization, and network resources into a single system. UCS solves a set of problems that IT teams have grappled with for years in traditional computing environments. The first is to build a system that can scale transparently. The key here is the ability to do rapid and zero-touch deployments. That means that in minutes the capacity is available and itÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢s used in the most efficient way possible. From a design perspective, we took a very network-centric approach with UCS. As an example, think about the standard model weÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ve used for years in routing: With a single command, I can plug it in, turn it on, and instantly that router starts adding itself to the topology and begins adding value. Compute infrastructure has never functioned that way. It's always been ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Â¦ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…â€œassembly-by-the-new-owner,ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â with a lot of heavy lifting involved. So we've taken the principles of networking -- federation, open systems, interconnect, peering, dynamic self-configuration of provisioning -- and weÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¾Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢re bringing those capabilities to the systems world. The end result is a system that scales and is very cost-effective ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¢ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â¬ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Â¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚Â¬Ãƒâ€¦Ã¢â‚¬Å“ a system designed for any workload to run on any server, at any time with all of the provisioning being done in software. From a cost-reduction perspective, UCS helps IT organizations reduce CAPEX by up to 20 percent and OPEX by up to 30 percent. UCS also improves speed and responsiveness, enabling IT teams to deploy new applications in minutes rather than days, while shifting their focus from IT maintenance to IT innovation.For more info on UCS, visit:http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns944/index.html

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